Rod Review: The Yuhangyuju 540

From time to time on the Tenkara forums, you will see someone post a question about the “no-name” fixed line fishing rods found on eBay or other corners of the interwebs. The person posing the question is typically wondering if they are any good, and invariably there seems to be someone out there who has bought one who is quite pleased with his purchase, particularly because it cost a fraction of the price of a name brand rod. But are they really any good? Well, I am generally very reluctant to put myself out there as any sort of expert in matters of fishing, but I will say Matt and I have probably handled more of these rods than most. We tested some different options before selecting the rod for our “break this rod” contest that some of you remember fondly. We have also considered carrying an ultra low cost rod if we found one we really liked. Which we haven’t. But, to give you a better idea of what the vast majority of these rods are like, I give you the review of our latest test rod, the Yuhangyuju 540.

​​I thought it might be instructive to rate the rod on a 10 point scale, with 1 being poor and 10 being mind-blowingly excellent.
 
Sensitivity: -37
 
I literally had no idea when I hooked into a fish. I did not feel takes at all. I think you would need to hook into into a bull shark or perhaps a killer whale to feel the take. The rod did fine on takes I could see. Since I was fishing my version of the San Ron Worm, I would follow the strategy of letting the fly sink a bit and setting the hook. And sometimes there would be a fish there, because that is what happens when you fish the SRW. But sensitivity? You’ll find more in the genetic offspring of a government regulator and a Civil War-era surgeon.
 
Cast-ability: 6
 
Of all the cheap rods we tested, I actually liked the casting performance of this one the best. I could get the fly where I wanted it to go with a fair amount of consistency. I was casting a hybrid line I made, about ⅔ lightweight floating line and ⅓ Sunline level line. My total line length, with tippet, was about 12 feet, following the “long rod, short line” philosophy. It will also cast well two-handed, which is good because after half a dozen one handed casts, I had tendinitis of my forearm. Because this rod is heavy, and to make it worse, terribly balanced. In fact, I think the balance of the rod just makes it feel even heavier. I imagine that if you fished a whole day with it, you would need to make various insurance claims related to how this rod abused your body. As I type now, my forearm is starting throb again. After fishing a nice run with the rod, my back hurt like I had spent the day doing heavy repetitive heavy lifting. Yet, it did mostly deliver the fly where I wanted it to go. It just relentlessly punished me in the process.
 
Fit and finish: 5
 
The rod came in a brown color. A nice brown, not so much a "communists-don’t-waste-money- on-colors" brown. There were some characters on it, presumably Chinese, but they could be Japanese. For all I know, they could say uncharitable things about tall skinny guys from Wisconsin. The grip is made of...material. Synthetic material, I suspect. It wasn’t uncomfortable but it wasn’t exactly calling me to caress it, either. It is kind of like the manufacturer thought “well, we must assemble this rod as cheaply as possible, but we’ll try make it look like, say, the second or third cheapest rod on the market.” No one will mistake this for a premium rod.
 
Fish playing performance: 3
 
While I’ve never landed a fish with a jump rope tied to a curtain rod, I imagine the experience would be similar to the performance of this rod. You could do it, but there would be little in the way of feedback or subtlety.
 
Conclusion
 
So, there you have it. You can certainly save some money and a buy a cheap no-name rod on the Internet for Tenkara fishing. You will still catch fish, but you will have no idea when you do since  there are scrap pieces of rebar that are slightly more sensitive than this rod. And you won’t actually save any money because what you save on purchase price you will spend on insurance co-pays for your ruined body. And your friends will make fun of you for buying such
 an unlovely thing. But you can tell folks you bought a Tenkara rod on the Internet for $18 and it caught fish just fine.

​- Mike @ Badger